Sisyphus

If the guy's not a complete idiot he'll go to multiple, far away pawn shops, so I wouldn't count on finding anything. However, plenty of burglars are idiots. A house where four of my friends were living was burglarized by the same guy three times in one week. By the third time, they were taking turns keeping watch, and they actually ambushed him, hit him with a maglight to stun him, and then all held him down while they called the police. Life sucks, yes, but sometimes you get revenge. ;-)

Agreed with bascule. "Pain" as a nervous response and "pain" as an experience of suffering humans would find familiar are not necessarily (or even possibly, I think) the same thing. I don't think it is really possible for a lobster to suffer.

Skin cancer is a conspiracy of the liberal media.

Well there's already the concept of legal guardian, no? That has nothing to do with marriage. Just have a "guardianship arrangement" or something, where people who live together can arrange joint and equal custody of a minor. Hey, I have a thought. Maybe the "abolish legal marriage" crowd and the "extend legal marriage to homosexual couples" crowd actually have a common interest. That is to say, the broader you make the legal definition of marriage, the less "marriage" actually means in a legal sense. If everyone is "married," then it means nothing at all, and the abolish legal marriage crowd wins. Not that marriage would be destroyed, just that it wouldn't mean anything legally. I'm thinking of the analogy of the Universal Life Church (minister since 2002!), taken even farther.

Ha. Why stop there? Let's create punctuation marks for every possible shade of meaning. Then we won't need words!

I agree that it really shouldn't be a legal issue at all. State-licensed marriage should be abolished altogether. If necessary, stuff like hospital visitation rights can be granted to some legally designated other person, irregardless of relationship. Kind of like power of attorney or something. That said, I also agree it's a separate issue. Giving rights to heterosexual couples and not homosexual couples is still unjust, and it's not any closer either way to abolishing legal marriage entirely.

Yes, I listen to him occasionally, too. Or I used to, since it told me, at least, what the conservative echo chamber is telling itself, and hence where all that stuff comes from. So in a sense, yes, it has "substance." But it's not a rational exploration of ideas, it's unambiguously propaganda. Liberals are stupid, smug, lying elitist sissies who hate America, and conservatives are tough, down to Earth, wise, noble patriots. In essence, that's all he ever really says, and he can say it however he likes, facts or consistency be damned. (The more outrageous and ridiculous he is, the more people will listen, out of satisfaction or outrage.) This is the message conservatives have been trying to instill in the public consciousness since the 80s, and it's finally working. Rush is just a manifestation of it. And you're using all the phrases they want you to. ("Liberal elite?" What does that even mean, exactly? Are they all sitting in a room somewhere? The very phrase implies conspiracy, does it not?) He screens calls for only the dumbest sounding liberals that reinforce the same stereotypes he's trying to spread, so he can make them all look stupid. Whenever they say something not stupid, they get cut off and aren't given a chance to respond to his rebuttal. BTW, full disclosure: I can't stand liberals, but I f*cking hate conservatives.

Ok. American terrorist support network? Liberal elite conspiracy? "Intellect?!" I think it's time you cut back on listening to the fat, hypocritical asshole in question.

What does the ad actually say?

The way I see it, some liberals do pretty much hate America, yes, but only inasmuch as they've bought in to the very propaganda they think they're fighting. In other words, conservatives try to equate their own ideals with America in the public consciousness. When their political enemies start believing them, then they end up hating "America" and looking like traitors. This, in my opinion, has been the most striking example of the vastly superior ability of the conservative political machine to coordinate and manipulate its message compared with any comparable liberal efforts.

I guess I can't say for sure what goes on inside the White House, but it does seem like a pretty much universal complaint among former senior administration officials, like Richard Clarke, Colin Powell, etc. One would be easy to dismiss as a disgruntled employee trying to save his own reputation, but you hear it all the time.

I don't understand how this relates to the text you quoted.

Lame! (Is there a policy against one-word posts of derision?)

I don't know about "anything," but there is some truth to that. It is possible to rationally investigate "alien abductions" without being pseudoscientific. However, if you conclude they're real, then you might want to examine your methods...

Well now I'm not so sure about that. I mean, yes, obviously the strategies are devised by generals and the like. But generals disagree, and the President is ultimately the one who decides. Now suppose that President and his staff only listen to those generals who are telling them what they've already decided they want to hear. That credit or blame we assign them starts to have a lot more meaning, doesn't it? And isn't that pretty much exactly what happened?

Why is everyone always so eager to destroy the universe and replace it with something sillier?

You really think so? Do you have a basis for saying that? I mean, an even bigger problem than insurgents is the Sunni and Shiite "militias" killing each other. Iran's not supporting both sides, are they? And the actual insurgents are primarily Sunni, right?

Perhaps Spaghetti Theory is just an atheist conspiracy to undermine our children's faith in the FSM.

I don't really think so, if only because its proponents haven't really claimed to have proven anything, and are in fact waiting on normal scientific methods for that. As such, it's not fallacious, just speculative, and acknowledged as speculative. On the other hand, you could easily take it into the realm of pseudoscience, and I suspect many have...

That it makes us all human is precisely the point. You approach things differently if you see yourself as righteous avengers vs. cackling villains than if you see it as a pragmatic, necessary, ammoral bid for survival and dominance. Since the latter reflects reality and the former does not, and generally speaking one ought to base one's decisions on reality, then I certainly think it's wise not to forget such facts. As for blurring the line for the weak minded, why, I'm surprised at you! This coming from the populist, the libertarian proponent of direct democracy? That people can't be trusted with truth?

Perhaps you should look up what the word "euphemism" means. I think that we should be bullies in this. We should be unfair and unjust, we should even kill innocent people if it helps, because we need to. My suggestion is not that we shouldn't do such things, but that we should acknowledge them for what they are. We're better than them, yes, but we're not a virtuous policeman, and thinking in that way is counterproductive, because it isn't what the debate should be about. We should all agree it's wrong. The question is whether it's worth being wrong. I think, in this case, it probably is. We are agreeing, for the most part. Again, I was speaking merely to the irony of JesuBungle talking about the term "Great Satan" and failing to notice the symmetry in the "Axis of Evil." And then you missing the point in my pointing it out. And yes, I do always sympathize with my enemies. What kind of a fool wouldn't?

Slightly off-topic, but the "elitist philosophical circle jerk" in question was not meant to be taken literally as a suggestion. It's a metaphor. And, arguably, an explanation of how such a thing wouldn't work. And in any case, we can at least learn from Athens itself. As a direct democracy, what did they do? Exile their greatest citizens (for fear they would gain too much power and undermine the democracy), put others, including Socrates, to death in kangaroo mob courts, launch a series of increasingly foolish and aggressive military campaigns in waves of patriotism and hubris (subjugating resentful "allies"), each of which was counciled against by the most knowledgable but supported by demagogues, and, last but not least, happily put de facto tyrants in place on multiple occasions (but not for long - no government lasted more than a few years). Now, a representative democracy is hardly immune from such things, but, for whatever reason, it seems more resistant to them.

Is it? Let's see. "Axis?" Well, they're not allied. Iraq and Iran were enemies, and North Korea had nothing to do with either one. Alright, "evil?" I'll grant there's quite a bit of evil, there, but it's not exactly the agenda, is it? I mean, evil for evil's sake? They're not cartoon villains, are they? So no, it's not a perfect description. It's a stupid description. Anyway, my point was more to try to avoid double standards. Let me be clear: I think the world is better with the U.S., Britain, etc., having nuclear weapons. I also think the world would be a better place if neither Iran nor North Korea could get their hands on similar weapons. I think we, pragmatically, should do what we can to (euphamistically) "discourage" those programs. But I don't think it has a damn thing to do with fairness. From the perspective of "rights," they have just as much right to a nuclear deterrant as we do. Yes, they call us names, say we're a big threat and an aggressor and it would be better if we don't exist, and that justifiably makes us nervous. But we do exactly the same thing to them. If anything, they're more justified, since they have far more to fear from us in conventional warfare then we do from them, and it is an entirely rational belief that a nuclear deterrant might be the only thing that could prevent invasion and destruction.

No, we call them the "Axis of Evil."

Ah. So "illegitimate" just means not democratically elected? Or did you have something else in mind? Anyway, to be fair, it's not quite so clear cut as all that. I mean, yes, Iraq definitely had violated lots of UN mandates, which if you look at it in isolation was certainly just cause. But then, UN "mandates" have also been violated by pretty much every country in the world, with similar lack of reprecussions. (Israel and Turkey have ridiculously long lists of such "violations.") Not saying it was an unjustified war (if nothing else, that's not an argument I want to have right now), but it certainly wasn't as clear cut as "you broke the law, you pay for it" or something.